


patiently, now, say, "i love you"

by haechansheaven



Series: to be a hero [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Character Death, Coping, Fear of Death, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Non-graphic death, Suh Youngho | Johnny-centric, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25466173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haechansheaven/pseuds/haechansheaven
Summary: Johnny is the husband of a hero. Johnny is the widow of a nation. This is his story.For years, Johnny tries to think of other ways to say I love you, and Mark waits, patiently.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: to be a hero [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876915
Comments: 40
Kudos: 125





	patiently, now, say, "i love you"

**Author's Note:**

> everyone grieves differently.
> 
> these are a collection of moments.
> 
>  **notes/expanded tags** : minor character deaths (taeil; johnny's grandfather); non-linear narrative with changing tenses; homophobia (one section, fourth article)
> 
> i mean it. this is a story about death and grieving and losing a loved one.

**_Just thinking of you asleep_ **

**_makes me want to pull every flower_ **

**_out of the ground_ **

**_and throw them onto your bed._ **

\-- Matthew Dickman, “Black Ice”

“Write what you can remember down,” his therapist tells him, “however you want, whenever you want. If things are too much, or if they’re not enough, and you’re afraid of forgetting him.”

Johnny takes this advice to heart and begins the process of documenting every moment that he thinks of him. If it’ll help, he isn’t really sure, but he’s getting desperate at this point. “Okay.” The journal feels heavy in his grasp. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

*

*

**The Death of a Nation: Golden Lion killed in action**

20XX May 27, XX:XX PM

_OO City – Tragedy has struck on this Sunday afternoon. In a fight against a villain, the world’s hero, Golden Lion, was killed in the line of duty while protecting a group of bystanders. This comes on the heels of the city’s mandate that individuals who are not superpowered must evacuate the scene of crimes to stay out of the way of heroes after the untimely death of Taeil Moon, more commonly known by his hero name Lunario, while protecting reporters._

“And we have—we have breaking news.” The reporter’s voice cracks. “Today, the world has lost its hero. Golden Lion has passed away as of –”

“Hello, is this Johnny Seo?”

*

*

When Mark had chosen his superhero name, Johnny had laughed, just a little. He didn’t mean to. It wasn’t really funny, rather—

“It suits you, you know.” He had cupped Mark’s face in his hands and, with the utmost sincerity, said, “You shine so brightly, and I think there’s something fierce about you.”

Mark was never going to choose anything else. He told Johnny because he wanted Johnny to be the first to know, and for that, he was grateful. Tying golden tinsel into his hair for the holidays and asking him what he wanted the most on his single night off, Mark laughed and said, “I’d like anything that you gave me but, more than anything, I think I’d like a meal, cooked by you.”

 _It doesn’t have to be fancy_ , Mark had added later on, his message going unanswered. Johnny was already in the middle of caramelizing onions to pay any mind to his phone.

When Mark came home, a little beaten, a little bruised, but smiling, Johnny sat him down and said, “Welcome home.”

Johnny is the husband of a hero. Johnny is the widow of a nation. This is his story.

He pins every article to his wall, even though his landlord said it counts as destruction of property. The day he leaves this apartment will be the day he dies. These small holes can be filled with plaster when he’s gone. They are repairable, and don’t leave gaps in the mind.

Johnny is watching the world through a double-sided mirror. This is why: Mourners cannot show grief the same way. They _will not_ show grief the same way. As the wedded to the dead, Johnny needs to move on so the world can move on. His grief is braided and rolled into a ball and tucked into his jean pockets. The ends fray, and it will slowly unravel, but it will be in his pocket, where people cannot see.

The things that the world asks of him through silent looks and desperate whispers are too much, too much. This is not what he signed up for. But it is. This is what Johnny tied himself to by marrying a superhero.

“ _If he dies one day_ ,” Jaehyun had said, “ _what are you going to do?_ ”

And Johnny had looked at him like he had fifteen heads because Mark? Dying? The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. To him, Mark was invincible. It is evident enough that he was not, because Mark is dead and all Johnny has to remember him by are home videos, photos on a computer, and printed out articles he taped back together after remembering what they all mean.

The world sees his grief the way they imagine theirs, and it moves so fast because Mark is forgotten in the blink of an eye. Heros are gifts to the world that aren’t meant to last forever. Mark was simply a gift that was a little shinier, a little prettier, a little faster, a little stronger. There was something nice about him that made the world want to cheer him on.

Once he died, the world forgot how pretty he was when they first unboxed him, and only remembered his corpse.

Johnny hasn’t seen pictures of him. He refuses.

Waking up beside Mark is like a little miracle, every single day. Johnny holds these moments in his hands in silence, in reverence. They go to church together on Sundays, but Johnny doesn’t pray the way he’s supposed to. With his eyes closed, he thinks of every single thing the world has given to him, intent on never forgetting.

Mark’s hands are warm in his and chasing after him is like trying to hold on to a shadow. The boat rocks and the shadow moves, and Johnny cannot do anything other than dig his hands into wood and feel the splinters embed themselves in his skin. He’s seasick at this point, but desperate to stick it out and reach the shore where the sun rests in a throne made of glass.

Their peace is something fragile, but replaceable. It’s always broken, and they always push the shards back together and let them rest in the sun and be reclaimed by the earth, until they bloom and are tucked back into his pockets again.

His superhero costume—“Don’t call it that!”—hangs on the back of their bedroom door as loud, obtrusive reminder of the obscene world that Johnny has stumbled upon by accident.

For years, Johnny tries to think of other ways to say _I love you_ , and Mark waits, patiently.

They move because there are cities that need heroes that they don’t have and Mark will fit that mold. Johnny follows, because that’s his fate.

*

*

There’s no rhyme or reason to anything he writes these days. They’re fragments of a long story. He writes about how Mark would wrinkle his nose at Johnny’s coffee, how he tried to feed squirrels peanuts the first time they walked through the park, and how he really wanted to adopt an old cat from the humane society several blocks away from their apartment. Small memories here and there that mean nothing to anyone else, but mean the world to Johnny.

 _I hope I’m doing you justice_ , he thinks. _I hope I’m being true_.

*

*

The end of the world comes on a Sunday. No one sees it coming. There’s not a cloud in the sky, but the birds are silent. It happens sometimes. It feels normal.

Comfort is weakness, Johnny guesses.

They wake up and go to mass, because it’s Sunday morning and it’s routine and, at this point, Johnny isn’t one to fight against that. Mark takes his hand, waves to strangers, and crows his catchphrase—“Just like the sun, I’ll never go out!”—as they walk in the cool spring morning. Johnny tells him that, one day, the sun will go out, and Mark laughs and says, “Yeah, you’re right.”

(Johnny doesn’t know that every time he says this, Mark thinks, _Just like I will_. He knows that it’ll break Johnny’s heart, and Johnny doesn’t deserve that.)

There’s something convenient about the way that routine sucks you into a parallel sort of existence. The kind of existence where you’re watching yourself from the outside. Routine is comfort, routine is safety, and breaking routine, well, isn’t that just a sign that everything is about to go wrong?

They never make it to church, and Mark never meets him at the door like he always does. That Sunday starts out sunny and becomes cold, and dark, and is a reminder of the dynamisms of spring. They say that fate is a strange and cruel mistress and Johnny thinks that he agrees.

It rains and Johnny thinks, ah, this is what that all means.

*

*

“Hello, is this Johnny Seo?”

“This is.”

“Ah, I’m not sure how to break this to you, but—”

“Stop fucking—give me the fucking phone. Johnny. Mark is dead.”

*

*

They connect the stars into a constellation that doesn’t make sense and name it after Mark. After that, Johnny hates looking at the sky. Donghyuck tells Johnny that it’s an honor, that Taeil and Mark are side by side, again, and Johnny looks at him like he’s fucking crazy. Something in him snaps and he laughs until he’s sobbing, and Donghyuck isn’t sure what he did wrong.

“We all die someday,” Donghyuck says. “It’s inevitable.”

“We don’t all die like _that_ , though,” whispers Johnny against a nighttime breeze. “We don’t all die and get immortalized in the sort of way that forces people to carry our legacy.”

“Do you feel burdened by his death, Johnny?”

Burden? Mark was never a burden, the grief from his death isn’t one, either. Rather, Johnny wishes it never happened to begin with. If death is inevitable, Johnny would rather spend his entire life waiting for that moment than to watch everything be pulled from his hands without him even knowing it. And that’s the most painful part of it all, isn’t it? That Johnny couldn’t be there.

“What’s it like,” Johnny asks, “to die all alone? Isn’t it a burden to know that I wasn’t there? That I couldn’t be there?”

Jaehyun tells him that his answer was cruel, and Johnny tells him that he’ll see, the day when Donghyuck dies.

“Now that,” Johnny says, quietly, “is cruel.”

Jaehyun forgives him, eventually.

“I never thought about it,” he admits.

“Neither did I.” Johnny smooths down the fabric on Jaehyun’s shoulders and whispers, “I’m sure Donghyuck has, though. Maybe you should, too.”

*

*

Doyoung gives him a picture, to tape into his journal, and Johnny thinks about how different things are these days.

“How are you holding up?”

 _I feel like I’m holding up the sky_.

*

*

Closing his eyes, he presses his palms together until his wrists hurt, and he prays. He never used to do this. Everything is different now. He walks to church on his own, and the pastor looks at him with a sort of pity that he used to reserve for others. Johnny fits into whatever category deserves it now, he thinks, even if he doesn’t want it. When someone you love dies, everyone will look at you and wonder, silently, if you’re doing okay.

If he holds his breath long enough, he can see Mark in God’s arms.

Johnny isn’t doing okay. It’s been a month and he’s so far from okay his life is bordering on becoming a comedy. Nothing in their apartment has moved in his desperate attempt to dig his fingers into the flesh of memories. Something about Mark is already starting to fade away, and it stirs a visceral sort of panic into Johnny’s heart, seeping through his veins to his extremities. The world has begun to look at him as some sort of protector of Mark’s memory.

Their parents stand behind him as Johnny speaks at Mark’s funeral, spewing out words that feel robotic and unfeeling, because they are. Processing grief and death, and all those sorts of things, isn’t something the body knows how to do without time. To say that one needs experience isn’t false. It’s simply cruel.

The world waits for an inevitability, pretends to pour its heart out, and then leaves the bereaved encircled by a fire. From there, they can be watched, and others can wait for them to break again and again and again.

In the church, alone, with the door wide open, Johnny closes his eyes, holds his breath, and prays. In this aftermath, perhaps, he will find grace.

*

*

Taeil left behind a wife and child, and all Mark left behind was Johnny. _They’re tragedies_ , the world whispers, _but not the same._

“It’s not a competition.”

*

*

**Golden Lion settles in OO City!**

20XX February 2, XX:XX AM

_OO City – World renowned superhero Golden Lion has chosen a home base! It looks as if OO City will become safer from this day on with another world-class joining the ranks of Lunario and his sidekick, Solaris. Golden Lion has made an official statement regarding his relocation to OO City. Below is the transcript from his press conference._

“Are you Golden Lion?! I’m your biggest fan! Can I—do you sign autographs? Can you sign my t-shirt! Gosh, I bet you that Hyunjin won’t believe me when I tell her we met _the_ Golden Lion!”

Mark settles into the city like it’s a second skin and Johnny watches him blossom into the kind of person he always wanted to be and more. This is where they’re supposed to be.

“This city has been safe since Golden Lion has arrived. We hope that he will settle here for a long time.”

*

*

In the distance is a car. It’s parked in the summer sun, and he kneels before a grave with a headstone that’s shiny and new and would be modest if not for the thousands of flowers around it. Today it is quiet and empty, and Johnny can cry without anyone saying a thing. In the distance, in the car, Taeyong sits in the driver’s seat and pretends not to watch his best friend bow his head and speak to a man that cannot hear him.

Beside this plot of land is a lake. There are swans and there are ducks, and a small place to sit in the shade of a cherry tree. It’s tranquil and almost the antithesis of who Mark was. Johnny thinks that he’d like it here, that this is the place he’d want to be buried.

(Johnny’s mind fights the thought that this _is_ where Mark wanted to be buried, that it was written on some document and pre-arranged the same day they signed the lease to their apartment. He didn’t know this and likes to pretend that he never learned of it, either.)

Crying doesn’t feel the same. It comes in waves. There will be moments, that Johnny simply _remembers_ —and it’s hard to explain what he means by _remembers_ because, while there are moments he forgets that Mark is truly gone, it’s a fact that he’s learned to accept as the truth, but he _remembers_ —and he will cry, because his body is so exhausted that it no longer knows any other way to show grief.

“Taeyong is in the car,” Johnny says, in a quiet voice, like the whole entire world can hear him. “Taeyong is in the car, and it’s the summer, so it’s probably pretty hot in there. He’s waiting for me, so I don’t think I should take too long, even if he told me to take as long as I needed. I need more than time than he can sit there for.”

If Johnny wanted to tell Mark everything that’s been on his mind since he died, it would take seventy-four hours and maybe a couple extra minutes. Everything adds up, after all. Small moments in life that he wishes he could share with Mark. The day that Doyoung’s daughter was born, and the celebration they held for him, for her, for her mother, for _life_.

“And this is me, wishing every single day that you come back and that the next time you leave, it won’t hurt as much.”

He isn’t sure how long he kneels there in the summer sun. The back of his neck and his hands are tanned. It reminds him of Mark who promised to shine like the sun that would never go out.

Beside Mark is Taeil, and Johnny asks him how he’s doing, if the sun isn’t too bright, if he’s sleeping well, if he’s watching his daughter grow, if Mark is giving him trouble, and it all just comes out of his mouth in one breath and he’s blue in the face by the time he stops and isn’t this funny. Isn’t this sad.

“I never thought that we’d end up here,” Johnny gestures around him, “like this. I bet you knew, though. Just like Mark.”

*

*

Mark, when they are married, likes to press their palms together and talk about his day. Johnny, these days, presses his own palms together and prays to a deity that has taken away his love.

*

*

Church on Sundays has become more of a habit than a place to whisper his wishes to the sky. Johnny has learned, by now, that his heart will never get what it wants. It’s a motion that he follows, and Johnny uses it to navigate the passage of time. Winters are cold without Mark, and Johnny has learned to become more comfortable with wearing gloves and scarves and jackets.

When the pews are empty, Johnny kneels and imagines a kind God who tells Johnny that this is all a dream and if he goes on a journey to the farthest corners of the world, he will be given back Mark and all the time they have lost since he died. Except, this is a test, but not the kind with a reward. Johnny will continue to exist and continue to search for someone he will never be given back.

He’s not given anything to remember Mark by—not even his transceiver, which was handed to the city museum before Johnny could even ask for it. It’s on display, now, shiny-looking and new, and still perfectly functional. Sometimes a call will come in and it’ll ring, alone, in the museum. He knows who it is, but he likes to imagine it’s Mark, from beyond the grave, saying thank you, I’m still here.

(Johnny is not the only one missing Mark. The world is mourning.)

The hero Golden Lion does not belong to Johnny. The man behind the mask, though, does.

“You should have this,” he’s handed a wedding band in a plastic bag, “at least.”

 _At least_ , Johnny thinks.

Yes, indeed.

In church, he prays to a ring around his finger and another around his neck. Whether it’s metaphorical or literal is hidden. Johnny lets the world think what they want and learns what it means for him to grieve.

They were married for a year when the world came crashing down on top of Johnny, pinning him to the ground and telling him to remember where he came from. It rubs his face into the dirt and tells him that death is an inevitability, and even Mark was prepared for it, so why wasn’t he? Maybe the ceremony was too pretty, in a chapel so large the world felt infinite.

(Johnny thinks that you can be as prepared as you want for an inevitability.

You can be as prepared as you _need_ to be, and everything will still hurt.)

If Mark is a figure that stands at the peak of a mountain, then Johnny is a pilgrim, making his way between the trees to pray. And the world watches and waits for him to come back, even when Johnny forgot to lay down a trail so he could retrace his steps. The world waits for a man who’s unsure of what to do with the piles of pity left at his doorstep and the millions of flowers that rest at his feet.

 _Are you okay?_ the world asks.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine eventually,” Johnny says to no one.

In the silence of his apartment, he’s begun to fill it with noise, again.

*

*

**INTERVIEWER** : And how did you meet?

 **JOHNNY** : I’m sure you’ve heard this story before.

 **INTERVIEWER** : Never from you.

 **JOHNNY** : Well, you never needed to. Nothing has changed. You’ve heard it once. It’s like beating a dead horse at this point.

It’s winter when Johnny speaks. He’s not as warm as he used to be, and the world around him has already crumbled. He has only given a thought to rebuilding. _You were mean_ , his mother tells him. _Why did you answer them like that?_ his father asks.

 _You could have done better_.

 _I don’t care_ , Johnny says. _Let them whisper_.

After all, it’s nothing new.

*

*

They say it’s a tragedy, a travesty, a crime against humanity.

No, Johnny thinks, it’s just what it means to be the face of a nation. No, Johnny thinks, this is just what they say when a billion people know your name. People die every day and it’s never the same. It’s because they think they know Mark’s face, Mark’s name, Mark’s story.

Save your pity.

Save your money.

Johnny didn’t even get to say goodbye.

*

*

Johnny can count the number of times he saw his father cry on one hand. And, when he thinks about it, the same goes for his mother. Altogether, there are less than ten times that sadness was allowed to settle itself in front of him on its hands and knees, and grovel.

When he was ten, his grandfather died. Johnny had wailed like there was no tomorrow. His grandfather lived with them, after all. He walked Johnny halfway to school and would have snacks ready for him on the table when he came home. Johnny’s grandfather taught him how to care for someone gently and with reverence, and with just enough sternness that there was normalcy and routine and no complacency.

He dies in a hospice, alone, at two in the morning. _He was asleep_ , Johnny is told. It doesn’t change that he was alone, on his own, stumbling into the afterlife, on his own.

( _A metaphor for life_ , the winds whisper. _This is all just a metaphor for life_.)

 _Don’t cry_ , his mother had said.

 _Stop crying_ , his father had said.

 _It’s shameful_ , their words had whispered, _crying like that_.

Johnny never learns how to grieve. People tell him that he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and Johnny doesn’t know how to say, _No, you’re wrong, you don’t know me, you don’t know this_. They ask for words, statements, messages of hope, and Johnny isn’t sure how to tell them that the only way he knows how to move on is to simply pretend that it never happened. Accept it and move away.

Mark dies and Johnny is lost. Is it okay to cry? Is this the time he’s allowed to mourn so openly that the world takes a step back and thinks, _what happened to this man?_ Johnny does not know. So, he bows his head and speaks about love, because he is sure about that much.

“I love him,” Johnny says, and it is present tense because it will always be present tense, “and he loved me.”

There’s something difficult about falling in love, and Johnny learned that when he met Mark. It takes time and patience, and Johnny has all but moved those moments to the back of his mind because those are things that _happened_ , and he knows he cannot relive them, so what’s the point in remembering? They fell in love, they were in love, and Johnny watched Mark’s memory skyrocket to the stars and rest on a throne made of the fragments of broken planets.

Johnny doesn’t remember crying over a broken heart, and he isn’t sure that he cried when he received the call, either.

 _It’s shameful_ , his parents have drilled into him. _To cry is to fail them. To fail us_.

He presses his heels into the floor and takes a step forward. This is the only way he was taught to cope. Life has moved forward as Johnny stumbled, thrown between the cracks of the sidewalk and covered in cement. Everything comes to the surface, bubbling and boiling and tearing him to pieces as he struggles to breathe. Again.

Jaehyun asks him why he isn’t crying one day, and all Johnny can tell him is, “It’s shameful, isn’t it, to cry?”

It’s a few weeks later that Jaehyun tells him, “I think it depends. You shouldn’t cry if you don’t want to.”

“Well, I think I want to.”

Johnny can’t see over the horizon. There’s no telling what the hell is waiting for him on the other side. Until he does, he’s satisfied with imprinting every memory of Mark on the walls of his mind, and traveling the world, seeing everything that Mark wanted to see. It takes years and years and years. People join him, or they don’t, though Johnny realizes that it doesn’t matter whether or not he has anyone with him.

Losing someone is a reality and Johnny has stumbled upon it in the middle of the woods.

He can’t see the end. Johnny’s feet are sinking into mud as he’s told, again and again, that Mark is dead, that he needs to move on, that Mark’s history is in his hands, that this is all him, all him, all him, nothing but _him_. A legacy is something that now Johnny most mold into what Mark wants, even when he doesn’t want this responsibility.

“I miss him,” Johnny whispers into the empty spaces in their apartment. They’re bigger now, even bigger than they were when Mark would be gone, and he’s trying to figure out the ways to manage it all. “I can’t tell where he’s gone, or what he’d want me to do. I miss him, but I’m trying.”

The world tells Johnny that it’s enough. Behind his back, they think he can do more.

Johnny thinks that he could, too. Actually _doing_ it, though, is a different story.

*

*

**EXCLUSIVE! Photos from the wedding of the century!**

20XX April 14, XX:XX PM

_OO City – The world-famous couple have tied the knot! Golden Lion and his civilian fiancé—now husband—have officially married this weekend in a small, private ceremony attended by close friends and family. It is reported that Lunario and Solaris were invited, though left the ceremony early to continue their patrols of the city._

“How did you meet?”

“Well, I think I’ve told this story a thousand times, but I definitely don’t mind telling it again, you know. I could talk about Johnny for _forever_.”

“Without Lunario and Golden Lion, something like unrest has settled into this city… More on this story at five.”

*

*

Johnny has begun to tape articles into his journal. It’s a bit obscene, someone else’s words in place of his own memories. He tells himself they aren’t excuses to forego the process of writing the most painful of memories, but that’s a lie. Happiness, sadness, those two things have begun to meld together in Johnny’s mind, and he can’t handle them. He can’t pick them apart the way he used to.

So, instead of learning how to deal with them again, he plucks torn-up articles from his walls and places them in his notebook. At the hardware store, he buys plaster and paint. The wall is beginning to heal, and Johnny thinks that he might be, too.

A little bit, every day. Some plaster, let it dry, some paint.

A little bit, every day. An entry, let him rest, write again.

*

*

One of Mark’s favorite pastimes is to replay videos from their wedding. After a particularly rough day, in silence, he’ll boot up his computer and watch the videos. He never does after they fight, though. Johnny can’t pretend to fully understand what goes through Mark’s mind and what peace he finds through watching them. He sits down beside him and watches them, anyways.

“That was nice of Doyoung,” Mark whispers, gesturing towards the video. Doyoung is on the screen, wishing the couple well, his wife beside him. “Why doesn’t he stop by anymore?”

Johnny doesn’t have an answer to that, so he presses his lips together and hopes that Mark won’t take it the wrong way.

“Okay,” Mark murmurs.

The videos are long, and it’s always either the dead of night or the sun is rising by the time they finish. Johnny’s doesn’t mind. He doesn’t understand it, but he doesn’t mind, either. These moments are quiet, and they mean a lot to Mark, so who is he to deny him this comfort?

“Won’t it be weird to watch these when we’re, like, eighty?”

Mark’s voice is shaky, and hesitant, and Johnny nods, holding him close. He gives it some thought, because Mark will always deserve that much, before saying, “It might be. A little. I won’t mind.”

“Then I won’t, either.”

For a superhero, Mark was clumsy. There was nothing inherently graceful or unique about him. He simply worked harder than everyone around him, though he was always hesitant to admit it. Johnny thinks about this one day, as a child across the street trips and scrapes his knees. For a superhero, Mark’s knees were always cut up, the heels of his hands raw from catching his fall.

Looking away, Johnny folds his hands behind his back and thinks about how much he misses Mark. There are those small moments, here and there, that really remind Johnny of how there was nothing inherently special about them. They met, they fell in love, and they got married. They loved, they fought, and they forgave. Johnny looks for something that set them apart from the rest, and he can’t find it.

These days, he watches old wedding videos and wonders if Mark would laugh at him when he walked through the front door, Johnny hunched over their old desktop and crying at the messages their friends left for them.

 _Endless happiness_ , Taeil had said.

 _A long and healthy marriage_ , Jaehyun wished, eyes closed. _That’s all I want for them_.

 _Forever_.

Donghyuck had said _forever_ , and he looked sad and pained and like he was expecting something that no one else could see and Johnny wonders if he knew. Mark was always one to sacrifice himself, and maybe Donghyuck had seen the future and knew that forever wasn’t in their destiny. He wished for it anyways and smiled into the camera with a sort of honesty that Johnny thinks he hasn’t seen in a while.

They’ve all changed since then, really.

*

*

“Um, I!”

Johnny turns, and stares at Mark, who clenches his hands into fists. “Yeah?”

“I love you!”

*

*

“They say he’s writing a book about his late husband,” a woman whispers. “Do you think we’ll learn anything new?”

Johnny looks at the notebook in his hands as he thinks, _I don’t know the Golden Lion you people love so much_.

The book he’ll write will be a love story, and it’ll fly off shelves while people grapple for a taste of the Mark that Johnny knew for seven years. He writes about their first date, and how they met, and everything between that and the wedding. There’s no sense to it, and his editor helps, but part of Johnny wants to keep it messy and unclear because as much as he loves Mark, he doesn’t know him the way that people want him to.

No one was there when Johnny received the call, alone in his apartment that suddenly felt so cold. The sheets on their bed are still wrinkled, the faint outline of Mark’s body still imprinted. If Johnny closes his eyes, he can see Mark, sprawled out and taking up way too much room, opening his eyes so slowly, gaze alert because, right, he’s a hero. That’s how he is.

No one was there to watch Johnny crumble those first hours, body shaking with tears that it didn’t know how to let go of anymore, hands and forehead pressed to the floor in a silent prayer that this is a joke, that this is fake, that it’s a lie.

(It’s not a lie, and yet Johnny still cannot visualize the truth. He pushes it away and preserves Mark in his memory. Encapsulating everything someone ever was in your words is difficult. Johnny does it one word at a time.)

Johnny thinks he might’ve screamed, too, until his throat was raw, and his entire body collapsed in on itself. From his fingertips to his core, every sense scrunched up until it was thrown to the river and allowed to disappear over the edge of a waterfall Johnny didn’t even know was there.

_The thing about grief, and mourning, you see, is that everyone goes about it differently._

Somewhere along the way, Johnny became numb, and forgot how to _be_. And then he remembered, all at once, and, right, that _was_ what it was like to feel. There’s no distinct timeline in Johnny’s mind of how his life continued to change after that moment.

 _The world will fall in love with the Mark I knew. The person he wanted to be_.

To be a hero, after all, is the ultimate sacrifice.

(To the be the widow of a hero, after all, is a sacrifice, as well.)

*

*

They say that Mark cried while he was dying. They say that he said he didn’t want to go, not yet, not this soon, that he should’ve listened to Johnny. Mark had begged the people around him to call Johnny for him, to let him say goodbye. No one around him had his number. Everyone simply watched and waited for something that the world thought was inevitable.

Johnny doesn’t learn this until four years have passed and someone plays a video on the anniversary of Mark’s death because there’s no such thing as sympathy after someone stops breathing. Death is ugly and suffocating. Johnny thinks that it’s not just Mark. He hasn’t been able to feel oxygen in his lungs for years now.

Watching the video means experiencing it all over again. It’s cruel punishment, and the broadcast station releases an apology the next day.

 _You’re too late_ , Johnny thinks. _The world has seen it all over again, anyways_.

“I’m sorry about that,” a hero says.

Johnny doesn’t recognize their face, or their name, and all he can say is, “Thanks, but you’re not the one I want to hear that from.”

More and more, people step out of the woodworks, a little too late, to let Johnny know that they’re here for him, that they see him, that they understand him. _I wish it was you instead_ , Johnny thinks as heroes send their condolences, one after another. _It could’ve been you, instead_.

It’s a thought filled with vitriol, and he feels guilty for it as soon as it passes. They, too, have people who love them and will mourn, just like Johnny.

Despite it all, the thought continues to rattle around in his head. _It could’ve been you, instead_.

*

*

He tells his therapist this, and they tell him to remember that their loved ones will feel the same way he does.

 _I think they all will, eventually_ , Johnny thinks.

 _You’re cruel_ , Jaehyun’s voice whispers.

“So be it,” murmurs Johnny. “If I’m cruel, then what is the world?”

*

*

Johnny isn’t a superhero. He can’t fly through the skies or lift boulders with his hands. Taeyong tells him to stop thinking of himself as weak.

“ _You wake up every day_ ,” Taeyong says over the phone. “ _I think that’s pretty damn amazing_.”

And, sure, if compartmentalizing trauma and sadness and anxiety was a superpower, Johnny is sure so much of the world would be considered superheroes. In their own rights, they are. They wake up every single morning and make their way through the day. It’s hard, it might never be easy, but they do it, anyways.

His head feels heavy on his pillows, and, through the years, he’s forgotten what it feels like to hold Mark in his arms when he sleeps. That’s a frightening realization, and Johnny finds himself watching their wedding videos just to remember what Mark’s laugh sounds like.

It is loud and full of life, and this is how Johnny wants to remember him.

Mark’s constellation, on late nights, keeps him company.

“How’s the view?” Johnny asks. “I saw a sparrow and I wondered if it was you. It was bright outside, the perfect kind of day, no clouds, a nice breeze. I know you really like when it snows, but I’m not really sure it’ll snow in the middle of June. Who am I to say, though? The impossible has always been possible when it comes to you.”

Like Mark dying. That seemed impossible. The world had other plans.

Johnny never looks up at the sky when he talks to Mark. The constellation still seems like an insult. He can’t wrap his head around something that seems to mock him. You can see the stars, and yet they are so, so far away. Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe they _named_ a collection of stars after Mark—after Golden Lion—to remind the world that these people are untouchable. The moon of a far-off planet is named after Lunario. It revolves around something that may not even sustain life. It’s better than a star, though. This constellation could already be extinguished, the stars having expanded so large before shrinking in on themselves. Perhaps some went in a supernova.

That’s something that Mark would’ve liked. A star, in its dying moments, giving a spectacular show.

“I’m going to go through our things this weekend.” He holds his head in his hands. “My therapist says I need to do this. That I can’t keep talking at the air like it’s gonna talk back to me. I want to, anyways, though. I want to keep you around in any way I can.”

_I think I’m losing my mind._

_It’s a little too early for that, Johnny._

*

*

The sun rises on a city that can only remember the outline of the hero Mark was.

*

*

**The wedding is “a shame on our city” says the mayor**

20XX April 15, XX:XX PM

_OO City – The mayor –_

“He can say what he wants. I don’t serve him. I serve the people.” On the television screen, Mark looks like the hero he is and not the man Johnny knows. Despite it all, Johnny knows that _these_ are Mark’s words. “If this was his real issue with me, he would have said something sooner.”

“Well, I’d say he just shot himself in the foot for his re-election.”

*

*

**JOHNNY** : Don’t ask me to speak for a dead man. I’m not Ma—Golden Lion, so I can’t tell you what he would want me to say to all of you, other than you need to keep going. He was never the kind of person to let the world stop him. I think it would be unfair if you stopped just because of this. But…

 **INTERVIEWER** : But…?

 **JOHNNY** : But, I think it’s okay to let yourselves grieve, however you do, for however long you need to. We don’t get better in a day. I just think it’ll be okay, probably, one day.

 **SOLARIS** : That’ll be all.

 **INTERVIEWER** : But—!

 **JOHNNY** : I’ve grieved the way you want me to. Now let me grieve on my own.

*

*

“That’s funny,” Mark had said, staring at the article. He had leaned too close to the screen, and Johnny had pulled him back before reading the headline himself. “Is he trying to drive me out? Does he want me to stop fighting crime here?”

Johnny was quiet because he hated this. He hated everything that had happened, that had transpired, that continued to beat them into the ground until they were on their hands and knees and it was only Mark who could hold his head up high. The world needs him more than Johnny does, and he wondered if it was selfishness that led him to say yes.

Moments of happiness were never far and few between, and Johnny was happiest with Mark by his side.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“I’d be dead if I didn’t think at all.”

Mark’s hands were warm. “You’re thinking _too much_. Just know that I need you here, and I’ll stay for as long as you want me. Fuck that man who thinks that he knows me just because he thinks he knows his city.”

Johnny thinks that it’s a miracle that Mark can still smile with everything that’s happened, everything that he’s seen, everything that he’s had to do. Mark holds his hands so gently and with so much love, it’s like he’s never had to kill a man with these hands.

(He remembers the first time that Mark killed a man. Inconsolable, he had sat in the corner of his room and cried for hours, until he fell asleep, woke up, and left for another patrol.

Because that’s what heroes do.)

Every day, in and out, Mark had asked him if Johnny really wanted him around, and Johnny would laugh and say, _of course_ , until they were married, and there were rings around their fingers, and he could say, _I wouldn’t marry someone I didn’t love_. Mark feared love out of pity and Johnny feared love out of complacency, and both of them harbored those sorts of thoughts until the day Mark died.

Days after Mark dies, that mayor releases a statement—that Golden Lion’s death is a tragedy and he wishes his partner, family, and friends his condolences.

“I don’t want them,” Johnny whispers to the television. “I don’t want the graces of a man who tried to kill Mark with his words.”

*

*

Mark Lee is a superhero. He’s twenty-four, the face of his country, and just a little bit clumsy. The people love him, and he just wants to be the best, whatever that means. He fights bad guys, saves the day, and makes it home in time for dinner. Most of the time, though, it’s just take-out.

Mark Lee is your regular old guy. He’s twenty-four, sometimes he forgets to water the plants, and one time he put his glasses in the fridge. His boyfriend loves him, and he just wants to be the best, whatever that means. He goes to work, finishes his assignments, and makes it home in time for dinner. Most of the time, though, it’s just take-out.

More than anything, though, Mark is a man who wants to propose. He’s spent the last year planning this day. It’s going to work. It has to work. There’s no room for failure. Even at his worst, Mark makes, well, the mark. Today should be no different. He’s off-duty—Donghyuck had waggled his eyebrows and laughed when he said, “Sure, sure, I got you!”—and Johnny is looking at him like he’s the only man in the entire world.

Being a superhero isn’t easy, though.

It’s no more difficult than being a functioning member of society and, along those same lines, things can pop up out of the blue from time to time. A beep of the pager, a vibration of the phone. For Mark isn’t an explosion. It’s less than a block away and he can see the smoke rising into the air. He’s closest and thinks through all his options before Johnny is pushing him forward.

“C’mon, Mister Superhero,” Johnny teases. “Go save the day.”

“I—” Several things go through Mark’s mind all at once, shoving his hand into his jacket pocket before placing the small box into Johnny’s hand. “Keep this safe. I’ll be right back. I’ll see you back at home.”

Mark will realize, several hours later, that this was a terrible idea. Hero Mark doesn’t have much time to think it through, though. In fact, he realizes it in front of a frozen pizza, halfway through chewing his food, free hand brushing over the bandage on his cheek when he notices it—the ring on Johnny’s left hand. And, oh, oh fuck, wait.

“Oh, yeah,” Johnny says, holding his hand out with a grin. “Yes, by the way. Your ring is still in the box. It’s in the bedroom.”

“Hang—hang on—”

“I really like the design you chose. And our initials on the inside.”

“… I don’t get a do-over, do I?”

“Do you need a do-over?” Resting his head on his hand, Johnny laughs. “I’m gonna marry you no matter what, right?”

“Please don’t tell Donghyuck.”

“Too late!”

They’ll laugh about this every day leading up to their wedding, and for years after, Mark’s supposed blunder something of a blessing in disguise. Johnny will think of that day fondly, Mark will say how it was supposed to go, and the world will feel grateful that there’s someone to keep Mark grounded.

Johnny is twenty-eight, frozen-pizza connoisseur, and fiancé to a superhero who’s got everything going for him and more.

They’re a perfect match.

That dinner, Mark burns the roof of his mouth on pizza and Johnny laughs until he cries.

Mark Lee is twenty-four, and somewhere between your normal, every-day guy, and a life-saving hero. He likes to dabble in both. He’s engaged, even though the whole thing still doesn’t make all that much sense, and he likes to eat take-out when he gets home from work.

This is just another day in his life.

That is how the movie industry tells their story. It sounds so pretty and so tragic, and Johnny thinks that it was nothing like that. People can think that if they want, though.

Johnny never watches it. Donghyuck tells him how it was with Jaehyun behind him, and Johnny wants to say thanks, but he can’t. There’s nothing to be thankful for. The media has contorted their story into something much more beautiful than it actually was. Johnny wants to tell them that they were broken a lot of times, and only whole towards the end, and that’s why Johnny wants a do-over.

He wants to try one more time, he’ll always want to try one more time. Johnny would sneak in a few more _I love you_ ’s, avoid a few more fights. He would do whatever he could, whatever the world would allow him to.

For now, all he can think is, _I miss you_.

*

*

They told him he could take time off from work, and Johnny said no. Grieving takes time and the world stops for no one. As people begin to forget Mark, he’ll be the only one who remembers. It’s a startling revelation that the Mark he knows is the man that he will carry in his heart until he dies. The Mark he knows is _his_ and not the world’s, and he finds comfort in that.

 _My Mark_ , Johnny thinks, _is mine. I think I can miss him the way I should_.

And so, for the first time in a long time, Johnny grieves.

At his door, Jaehyun knocks once, twice, three times, before it finally opens and Johnny stands there, looking like a ghost in his own home. Donghyuck’s hands wrap around Jaehyun’s wrist, and Johnny wonders what that means.

“We’re here,” he whispers into the silence.

“Thanks,” Johnny chokes on dust, “for being here.”

Johnny lets them in because standing there is useless. For the first time in ages, his curtains are open and Johnny can see the city he and Mark fell in love with all those years ago. It looks so different, and so he wonders if he can learn to love it again.

*

*

Normalcy is a pipedream, and Johnny is walking the ledge. The world has moved on, and Johnny continues to navigate it with a recklessness that others frown upon. Grief, after this, continues to exist in the periphery. There are moments where Johnny remembers, and allows himself to be consumed by sadness, before the world resets and he remembers, _right, there’s a life I still need to live_.

Mark’s constellation in the sky doesn’t incur rage, though Johnny still doesn’t think that Mark would like to be immortalized in such a way. Stumbling past it, he thinks that, well, there isn’t anything he can do.

The bed still feels so big, and the apartment still feels cold, and Johnny is thirty-three and wonders what the fuck this grief means for the shaping of the rest of his life. Sometimes he gets angry at the world, the kind of anger that unfurls from the center of his chest, to the right of his heart, before sleeping again, for however long it needs to.

In the office, Jisung stares up at him in confusion, and then wonder, before saying, “Good morning.”

Johnny has bowed himself to the world and the way it moves. “Good morning.”

*

*

In another life, Johnny wakes up to see Mark by his side. There’s a slow realization that this is real, that Mark is here, and Johnny shouldn’t be afraid anymore. His superhero outfit doesn’t hang on the back of their bedroom door, and it’s eleven in the morning on a Saturday.

This is the kind of day he always dreamt of. A late morning, a slow start, and Mark, in his arms, where he’s supposed to be. Between the curtains, the sun’s fingers appear, pulling the fabric apart until Johnny’s face feels warm and this becomes reality.

“Good morning,” Johnny whispers to the sun. “I’m home.”

Mark wakes up, like he would, and says, “What do you mean? You’ve always been home.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for coming on this journey with me :]
> 
> everyone grieves differently. i do not think we should fault others for that.


End file.
